Page 34 of Lady Macbeth

Her mouth turns dry with fear. No, she thinks, no, there are still two of her requests left to fulfill, still two trials before bloodied sheets and bloodied thighs and the terror of a child growing inside her—but perhaps her failure, his anger, will have moved Macbeth beyond care of the old custom. Bile rises in her throat.

But her husband still does not face her as he says, “Bring the water and cloth.”

With slow, creaking movements, Roscille kneels beside the bucket. She soaks the rag in the water, then draws it up and wrings it out, until it is damp but not dripping. Then she rises again. Macbeth turns to her at last, naked from waist to head, and looks expectant.

Roscille has never seen this much of her husband, or of any man, before. His chest is a craggy landscape, broad hills and narrow valleys, long divots like dried-up streambeds, bones fitted together in an intricate puzzle under his skin. The skin, cratered with scars. One broad and short along his left shoulder; another, long and sinewy, across his abdomen. It is transformed by the swelling of his muscles, made all the more gruesome and bizarre. The way it is raised, the wound must have been terrible. Deep.

Hands trembling, Roscille approaches him. A thin film of sweat and grime covers his skin. She lifts the rag and dabs it on the hollow of his throat. This seems the least frightening place to start. She has, after all, seen this part of him before, the first near-death scar. Macbeth’s pulse throbs under her hand.

Roscille is a noble lady and has never cleaned anything in her life; only now that Hawise has been taken from her has she learned to wash herself. She scrubs hesitantly at the line of his collarbone.

Macbeth grunts. “Am not made of glass.”

Her own neck prickles. “I’m sorry, my Lord.”

She scrubs harder, at first with the rag held between her thumb and forefinger, and then, when she reaches the broader planes of his chest, she spreads the rag beneath her open palm. Macbeth’s heart beats in steady thumps. She feels it humming up through his skin.

When Roscille kneels to rinse the rag and soak it with new water, Macbeth says, “You did not kill him.”

Her fingers curl around the cloth. It drips and drips and drips onto the stone floor, the only sound in the room. The water is cold and now so is her hand.

“No,” she says slowly. “I did not.”

The water forms a small pool on the floor. Her husband watches her, through the veil. Can he know? Will he see the way her lips are swollen, just slightly, tender to the touch? Will the necklace slip down to reveal the red marks made by another man’s mouth? Can he smell the adultery on her, like blood alerting the senses of a hound? Roscille draws a breath that sucks the veil inward.

If she chose, she could reveal Lisander for what he is—or rather, what he is not: He is not a mortal man. But what will this achieve? A secret only has value until it is spent. Then it is dust. She cannot see how it will advantage her, to spend this secret now.

And Lisander is the only man alive—so long as he remains alive—who may see her truly, her unguarded eyes. When she is gone from the world, she realizes, a piece of her soul will go with him—the clandestine, mystic knowledge that Roscille is almost too afraid to discover. What do you see, inside me? Speak truth. Tell me what mortal men cannot.

“It is good,” Macbeth says. “He is of greater use to us alive.”

The knot in her stomach loosens slightly. “As hostage?”

“As a hostage, yes—who knows how much Æthelstan will cede for his safe return? In the meantime, he will provide good knowledge of our enemies. Their plots, their powers. How many Scotsmen will rally to his brother’s side—and how great an army Æthelstan can raise in England. He will not disclose this information for nothing, of course. But there are ways to make men speak.”

Roscille feels her throat closing. She is no stranger to this, of course; she was raised in the court of Alan Varvek. The Duke is miserly with his violence, but when he does spend it, he spends it lavishly. His torture chambers are as opulent as his feasting halls. His racks are always well oiled, so the metal does not scream when the victim does. His saws are sharpened weekly. Breizh’s finest blacksmiths crafted the spikes on his chair. His breaking wheel has never once broken.

She has to swallow hard before she can ask, “Will this not affect his value as hostage? Evander may pay less for a damaged good.”

Macbeth huffs. “No man comes out of war intact and clean. Even the cosseted boy-prince knows this.” He looks down at the rag dripping in her hand. “Go on.”

Roscille raises her hand and scrubs again at his chest. He is solid, impenetrable. Nothing gives way beneath her touch. She hopes he cannot feel the way her fingers tremble. If she closes her eyes for the briefest moment, if she even blinks, she can see the darkness of a dungeon, pricked with the light of glinting silver blades. If she were alone, she would retch.

If Macbeth does notice her quaking, he does not remark upon it. Instead, he says, “I will entrust this to you.”

A shock along her spine, as if she’s been prodded. “What?”

“I leave for Moray tomorrow, with the joined armies of Glammis and Cawder. Once I take Duncane’s throne, the rest of Alba will fall to its knees before me. And while I am away, you are the Lady of Glammis. The prince’s questioning will be your purview, the whole castle under your keep.”

Roscille stops scrubbing. “You will leave me here alone?”

Macbeth mistakes this for attachment. Affection. He smiles.

“I will not be gone too long,” he says. “And when I return, Glammis will be the new seat of power in Alba. I will be King, and you will be Queen, hereafter.”

Her mind returns to a dark place. Not an imagined dungeon this time, but the basement, with its damp, filthy air. With its churning waters and rattling chains. Les Lavandières gleam in the blackness, showing streaks of curdled skin. Their blind eyes are too cloudy to hold the torchlight. Their augury rises from the water like fog, syllables of prophecy scraping the jagged ceiling.

All hail Macbeth, Thane of Glammis.